The Detox

After the awesome cheese/meringue/Disaronno fest at K's house, I thought I should try to balance out my diet by having a detox, staying clear of alcohol/sugar/dairy for at least twenty-four hours. 

The problem is that a day without dairy or sugar is really a pretty boring day. 

Here we are 'enjoying' stirfried vegetables and rice.  And a glass of water.  Mmm!

And here was the lunchbox I took to work to snack on through the day - apples, kiwis, peaches and blackberries.  Very virtuous.  But, let's face it, not as good as a cup of tea and a Bourbon biscuit.  Bah, detoxing. 

Come Dine With Me - The Clapham Edition

Last Friday, we clock-watched at our respective offices until home time crept s-l-o-w-l-y around and we were set free to hightail it to Clapham and enjoy the culinary achievements of the lovely Miss K.   The meal looked intriguing from the beginning:

K's chopping board, featuring an apple, chopped walnuts, and a MOUNTAIN of Cambozola cheese.   I don't think I'd ever come across this cheese before.  It was amazing - a cross between Gorgonzola and Camenbert (as the name suggests).  We should have more cheese mash-ups - I'm sure there's a market out there somewhere for a daring Edam/goat's cheese combo.

K combined all the fancy ingredients above into one beautiful-looking, heaven-on-a-plate, risotto.   Here's a pic:

Lovely, no?  And it was delicious - all creamy cheese offset by the crunchiness of the walnuts and the freshness of the apple.  Om. 

Here was the show-stopping dessert:

That's a peach pavlova with raspberry coulis.  Amazing, right?  But wait!  There's more!  Are you sitting down?  K MADE THE MERINGUE HERSELF.  The night before!  From scratch!  I was very impressed by this feat of domestic goddess-ness. 

If you look carefully at the corner of the photo above, you can see the guilty secret of our Come Dine With Me evenings, and the cause of many a post-dinner hangover.   Ah, Disaronno. 

Mushroom & Chard Risotto

I'm sorry to hit you with two chard recipes in a row.   I know it's not very imaginative - my only excuse is that we got a big ol' bag of chard in our weekly veg box delivery, and we needed to put a serious dent in it before it started multiplying, bullying all the other vegetables and turning our fridge into Kingdom of the Chard.

This is essentially this dish, with the peas removed and some chard thrown in.  It's actually a delicious addition - it keeps its colour and flavour when cooked, so it brightens up the rice and provides a nice bite to each mouthful. 

Here's an action shot:

Look at that!  The white of the rice, the brown of the mushrooms, and the green of the chard - so beautiful!  It could be a painting.  (Almost). 

Potato, Chard & Peanut Stew

The other day, I got in from work and (immediately, because food is always on my mind) started wondering about what to make for dinner.  We'd had a veg box delivery, so I had lots of fresh, autumnal vegetables around, but not a lot else.  And since we're in a month-end, post-holiday lack-of-money pit, I wanted to steer clear of a supermarket trip if I could help it.  (I always go for one thing - milk, say - and come home with biscuits, cheese, some new socks and a lottery ticket, often without the milk that I was aiming to buy.  Damn you supermarkets, and your cleverly-placed promotional item displays!  TANGENT.)

So I had a hunt through the cupboard and a quick search online for some ideas, and the potato and chard stew was born.

You need (serves 2):

1 nicely-sized sweet potato
Some white potatoes - about two per person, more if you're starving
1 onion
3/4 pt vegetable stock
2 tblsp's peanut butter (I think the natural variety is probably best for this - you don't want it to be too oily)
1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed
Black pepper
Two handfuls chard, chopped

Chop your potatoes into manageable chunks, and parboil for about ten minutes, until soft-ish.  While they're cooking, chop your onion and fry over a low heat until golden in a nice big, ovenproof saucepan.  Add the spices and plenty of pepper.  Drain your potatoes, and add them to the pan with the onion.  Stir, and then add in the peanut butter.  Don't worry if it clumps together, it will all come together in the oven.  Add the vegetable stock, ensuring that all the potato is covered.  Pop a lid on your saucepan and stick in the oven, at 180 degrees, for about half an hour.  Remove, check the potatoes are soft, then add the chard.  Bake for ten minutes more, and then serve.

Note:  this makes a mild, nutty-flavoured stew.  If you like more heat, feel free to up the spice content (some mustard seeds might work well).   And if you're ravenous, make some rice to have alongside - but it's pretty carb-heavy and substantial on its own.

When Life Gives You Tomatoes....

...make tomato soup.

While we were sunning ourselves in France, our tomato plants were hard at work at home.  The day after we got home, B picked 6 pounds of fruit.

That is a LOT of tomatoes, people.

In an attempt to clear some fridge space for other foodstuffs, B made tomato soup.  He made it according to a Heston Blumenthal recipe (which I can't find the link to online, but it's from this book), which calls for no water or stock to be added - so it's just tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, flavoured with onions, celery, garlic and big bunch of thyme.  

The result is an intensely-flavoured soup with all the summery freshness of tomatoes without any of the acidic taste you sometimes get with canned varieties.

Soupe de Poisson

On our last night in Capestang, we stayed in and had one of our favourite, only-in-France meals:  fish soup. 

You can buy this soup ready-made from the supermarket in big glass bottles.  It's not expensive, and you really don't want to guess what goes into it, but it tastes amazing.  Very savoury and salty and satisfying, without being too "fishy", if that makes any sense at all.

You serve the soup with spoonfuls of garlicky rouille stirred through it. 

And bread, wine and salad.

The wine we were drinking came directly from the local vineyards - we just take a plastic, 5-litre bidon down to the cave cooperative and they fill it with wine from a hose.  From a hose!  France is totally the best country ever.

This little bucket of happiness cost us a grand total of 6 euros.  Yep.  I know. 

That's it for the holiday posts!  I'll be putting up some spartan and thrifty entries after this, to compensate for all the cheese and wine.  Thanks for reading, and see you on the flip side!

Dinner at L'Auberge de la Croisade

I have to confess that B and I are fairly lazy/unadventurous when it comes to eating out in France.  We have our old favourites, which are about thirty seconds' walk from our front door, and we tend to stick to them.   Then last summer, our friends Tom and Charlotte stayed in the same town and raved over a restaurant they'd discovered about ten minutes' drive from Capestang, on the road towards a little town called Cruzy.  We were sort of ashamed that we'd never even heard about it, let alone visited it. 

So we resolved to try it this time.  When we arrived, I was so glad we did.  This is what it looks like:

Because it was a warm night, we were able to sit out on the pretty terrace of the restaurant, which was lit by lanterns and surrounded by greenery.  This was the view, over the wide and peaceful Canal Du Midi:

Nearly every table outside was taken, which - since we were there off-season - shows just how popular this place is. 

There were several set menu options on offer, so true to form I went for the cheapest (19.95 euros) and B went for the most intriguing-sounding (the menu surpris, with which you choose either the meat or fish option, and then eat whatever the chef sends out).

The meal kicked off with a pre-starter dish:

I didn't catch the name of this, but it was basically an egg soup drizzled with fresh basil pesto.  I know that sounds kind of gross, but you'll have to take my word for it - it was silky-smooth and very rich. 

This was my main course, a beautifully thick piece of white fish with a crumbed topping and served with a creamy, tarragon-y sauce.

Just looking at that picture is making me hungry.

B had magret de canard, which was pretty much a whole duck, served pinky-red in the middle and surrounded by a dark, savoury gravy.

There was a cheese course, too.  Cheese makes me very happy.   (Remember the cheese trolley at Zaranda?  Ahhh.) 

From left to right, we had a spready blue cheese, a slice of cantal, and a perfectly-ripe-to-the-point-of-runniness Camembert.   I'd thought I was too full to want cheese.  Turns out I was wrong!

The final flourish was the dessert.

Your eyes do not deceive you - that really is a selection plate of mini desserts, including a scoop of blackcurrant ice-cream, a teeny slice of rich-as-sin chocolate tart, a coffee-flavoured mousse, and a raspberry mille feuille.  Oh, and masses of cream. 

Since we were much too full to move, we lingered at our table and drank the locally-produced wine as the sun set.